Dr. Aled Edwards is a world-renowned expert in open innovation and drug discovery. He is the founding CEO of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), a U.K.-based charitable company that carries out open-source research to support the discovery of new medicines, with support from the public and private sectors. As we look at diversifying the forest sector toward new biochemicals, advanced biofuels, bioenergy and biomaterials, the question of innovation and how it is applicable to the forestry business model has generated many debates. His work on genomics as well as his position on open innovation will be of great interest and bring out very interesting parallels to the new forest products.

Dr. Aled Edwards currently holds the Banbury Chair of Medical Research at the University of Toronto, Canada and is a Visiting Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of Oxford, U.K.